The paper comes back and the marks look fine. Everything they attempted is right, or nearly right. The problem is the last page, which is blank, because time ran out.
You already know your child could have done those questions. They know it too. And the obvious conclusion — do more papers, against the clock, until they get faster — is the advice everyone gives.
Although I do think it's helpful advice, I don't think it's optimally helpful advice; running out of time can be linked to distinct issues/root causes which are better addressed individually, for faster improvement.
Why does my child run out of time in 11+ papers?
Because something specific is eating the minutes, and it's often not just whether your child knows the material.
Many 11+ papers work out at roughly a minute a question, though it varies a lot by region and format. That sounds generous until you look at what a minute has to cover: read the question, work out what it wants, do the work, write the answer, move on. A child who is fifteen seconds slower than they need to be on each of those steps isn't slow in any way you'd notice watching them. Across fifty questions, they've lost twelve minutes.
Which means the fix depends entirely on where those fifteen seconds are going. Here are the four places they can tend to be lost:
Four reasons children run out of time
1. They're reading slowly, not working slowly
This is the most common one and the least visible, because from across the room it looks identical to thinking.
A child who reads a question twice before starting has doubled the cost of every question on the paper. Sometimes they're re-reading because they didn't take it in the first time. Sometimes they're re-reading because they've learned not to trust their first pass. Either way the arithmetic is untouched and the clock is gone.
Word problems make this much worse, because there's more to decode before any maths can start. If your child stalls specifically on questions written out as stories, that's a related but distinct problem and worth ruling in or out first.
What might help
Reading speed improves with reading, not just with timed papers. Twenty minutes a day of anything they'll actually read can do more here than another practice paper.
Also, watch whether the re-reading is selective. A child who goes back over the harder questions is doing exactly the right thing, but a child who reads every question twice regardless of difficulty has potentially stopped trusting their first pass, and that's the habit worth gently unpicking — not the re-reading itself.
2. Number facts aren't automatic yet
There's a real difference between a child who knows that 7 × 8 is 56 and a child who can work out that 7 × 8 is 56. Both get the mark, but one of them confidently gets it in under a second.
A child recomputing their times tables, or counting up to do a subtraction, pays a small tax on nearly every question. It often doesn't show up as a wrong answer, which is why it's easy to miss.
What might help
Short, daily, low-stakes recall practice — a couple of minutes is enough. The target is automaticity, which is a different thing from accuracy and needs different practice.
The same applies to number bonds, doubles, halves, and common fraction-decimal equivalents. Anything common that they currently derive, they should eventually just recall.
3. They're checking too much
Some children finish a question, and then quietly do it again to make sure. Ten questions rechecked at forty seconds each would be nearly seven minutes, spent confirming answers that were already right.
My guess is that this is more often about reassurance than technique. A child who has learned that mistakes are costly will spend time buying that certainty. If that's what's happening, telling them to 'just stop checking' tends not to work, because the uncertainty is the root cause.
What might help
Give them a rule that replaces the behaviour rather than forbidding it: answer every question once, then check at the end with whatever time is left. That preserves the reassurance while moving it somewhere it costs less.
If the checking is heavy, it may be worth looking at the pressure around the exam more broadly than at the exam technique.
4. They won't leave a question they can't do
A ten-year-old who hits a question they can't do will often overstay before cutting their losses. Not out of stubbornness — more that abandoning it feels like giving up/directly forfeiting marks, which in a highly-competitive exam is tough to reason with.
One question can eat six minutes. Six minutes is five or six other questions they could definitely have answered.
What might help
This is the one that genuinely responds to timed practice, and it responds fast — usually within a handful of papers.
Give them permission explicitly, and a rule: if you don't know how to start after about thirty seconds, put a mark by it and move on. Come back at the end. Most children need to be told this more than once before they'll actually do it. Give them the understanding that cutting their losses isn't going to lose them marks — it's going to gain them.
How to work out which one it is
Here's the part that makes the difference, and it takes one paper.
Sit with your child while they do a full paper under normal timing. Don't help. Every five minutes, note which question number they're on. That's it — you'll end up with a list of about eight numbers.
The shape of that list is a decent clue as to which problem you have:
Reading the pattern
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Steady but too slow throughout — roughly even progress, just not fast enough to finish. Usually points to reading speed or recall. Causes 1 and 2.
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Fine, then a long stall, then fine again — five minutes where the question number barely moves. That's the clearest signal of the four: a child stuck on one question and not skipping. Cause 4.
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Good pace early, slowing badly at the end — could be checking, could be fatigue, could be the harder questions being at the back. Worth asking them which.
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They finish, but the score is worse than untimed — not really a timing problem. That's accuracy under pressure, which we'll write about in the future.
None of this is precise, and one paper is a small sample — a child can have an off day, or hit an unusually hard question. But it points you somewhere specific, which is more than "do more timed papers" does.
What we do about it
In 11+ Heroes, our Expeditions (video-game-styled exercises) reward children for answering faster, which turns out to matter more than it sounds. Recall and working-out speed is built by frequent low-stakes repetition, not by sitting papers — and a child who wants the better reward will do that repetition willingly, which is the part that usually fails at the kitchen table.
Our in-platform Summits cover the other half: hand-crafted, mini-mock exams under real conditions, available at any time. This is where the skipping habit gets practised and where leaving a question genuinely costs a mark.
You can sign up for free here!